The Essentials of Robert's Rules for Subsidiary Motions

Much of the actual action of a meeting run in accordance with Robert's Rules is carried out through subsidiary motions. Through subsidiary motions, you can tweak the content of the main motion and institute a variety of parliamentary procedures.

Robert's Rules allows a member to speak in debate twice on each motion — with up to ten minutes per speech! Even for small boards, that kind of rule can make for some l-o-o-o-ng meetings, especially if[more…]

How often have you come home from a meeting exhausted because you listened to the same points made over and over again? Robert's Rules has a solution: the previous question subsidiary motion. Although[more…]

Under Robert's Rules, the subsidiary motion to lay on the table refers to temporarily setting aside a pending motion (or a series of pending motions) to take care of something else deemed urgent. The motion[more…]

Rules are put in place to protect members' rights, and when the rules aren't followed, those rights can get trampled. Fortunately, Robert's Rules says that any member who notices a breach of the rules[more…]

Even the most highly studied, best prepared, and popular presiding officer with a deep knowledge of Robert's Rules can make mistakes. When one of those mistakes involves a ruling on a matter of parliamentary[more…]

If you think a motion is such a bad idea that it shouldn't even be discussed, according to Robert's Rules, you can make a motion to object to the consideration of the question. This incidental motion is[more…]